In recent months, sources say, New Jersey heroin merchants Arnold (Zeke) Squitieri and Alphonse (Funzi) Sisca have begun reporting to Gotti's brother Peter, the latest stand-in boss, and been spotted at his Ozone Park social club and other Gambino haunts.

Peter picked up the reigns of the battered and beleaguered crime family after his nephew, (Junior), was charged with racketeering last year. Junior, who got 77 months in a plea deal, took over when his father John was convicted of murder and racketeering and sentenced to life without parole. The former Teflon Don has not been on the streets since FBI agents arrested him at his Little Italy social club in 1990.  

Squitieri, 63, and Sisca, 62, were released from federal prison on Mar. 13 after serving more than 11 years for dealing drugs in the early 1980's with Gene Gotti and the Gotti brothers' boyhood pal, Angelo Ruggiero.

"John always liked Squitieri," said one source. "They drank together; they played cards together, and Squitieri (left) is a tough guy. He's done some work and since he got out he's been promoted to capo."

Squitieri was inducted into the crime family in 1986, a few months after Gotti  orchestrated the assassination of Paul Castellano, sources said. Two years later, Squitieri was part of a hit team that executed mobster Louie Milito in  Tali's Bar in Brooklyn, according to turncoat Gambino underboss Salvatore (Sammy Bull) Gravano.

In 1982, Squitieri and Sisca would meet Ruggiero in Queens and purchase heroin they distributed throughout the Garden State.  

Once, they were overheard talking to a rogue private eye who was searching -- obviously unsuccessfully -- for bugs at Ruggiero's Cedarhurst, Long Island home.

The bug never picked up the visitors talking about dope. However, agents discovered that the drug transactions took place at a hot dog stand in Queens after hearing Ruggiero say several times that he was "gonna go meet Zeke and Funzi for a hot dog."

In 1988, they were convicted of conspiring to distribute heroin with Gene Gotti, Ruggiero and John Carneglia, and of selling a kilogram of heroin for $180,000 to Richard Pasqua, a drug dealer who testified against them.

Gene Gotti and Carneglia were convicted at a separate trial and sentenced to 50 years. They are due out in 2018. Ruggiero died of cancer before the trial.

Citing several reported admissions to the crime by another gangster, Colombo associate Frank (B.F.) Guerra, Smith's lawyers, James DiPietro and Steven Kartagener, have asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder -- the original trial judge -- to overturn the conviction.

According to the lawyers, in 1992, Guerra told Smith's mother Phyllis, turncoat Luchese mobster Frank Gioia Jr. and Kartagener that he was the "Frank" who had supplied $4500 worth of coke to an undercover cop in 1987.   

Manhattan prosecutor Ellen Corcella has declined to address whether Smith was the wrong "Frank" and Guerra is the right "Frank" and is opposing the motion on procedural and technical grounds.

In court papers, she noted that Smith's lawyer at the trial, Edward Rappaport -- now a judge in Brooklyn  -- had referred to a "Frank Guerra" in his closing remarks to the jury and could have subpoenaed   Guerra (left) at trial. The evidence about Guerra is not new, she argued, and since Rappaport did not  use the information at trial, Smith essentially waived his right to do so now.

For now, Snyder has reserved decision in the case and has suggested that the two sides negotiate an amicable settlement.